Noah Lyles Edges Kishane Thompson to Win 2024 Olympic 100m Title by Thousandths

PARIS – Silence, then a gun. Seventy-seven thousand voices scream as one as eight men sprint down a track for just shy of 10 seconds. And then…a pause. Twenty-eight seconds that felt like forever, with sporting immortality and the title of Olympic 100-meter champion on the other side as the photo finish crew determined the winner.

For Noah Lyles, those 28 seconds at the Stade de France on Sunday night marked a transition phase in his life. There was before. And now there is what he will be known as, tonight and forever: Olympic champion. In the biggest race of his life, the 27-year-old Lyles summoned his greatest 100-meter performance, running a personal best of 9.79 (+1.0) to defeat rising Jamaican star Kishane Thompson to become the first American to win track & field’s most famous race since Justin Gatlin 20 years ago.

Just .03 of a second separated the top four men, with Lyles edging out the 23-year-old Thompson by just five-thousandths of a second, the smallest winning margin in an Olympic 100 since 1980. Fred Kerley, the silver medalist three years ago in Tokyo, who parted ways with his sponsor Asics just two weeks before the US Olympic Trials, capped a turbulent year with second-straight Olympic medal, this time a bronze in 9.81 (silver in 2021), his fastest time in more than two years. South Africa’s Akani Simbine, who was 5th at the 2016 Olympics in Rio and 4th in Tokyo, was once again the odd man out, despite running a lifetime best of 9.82 to miss the podium by .01 in a race defined by narrow margins (his previous pb of 9.84 dates to 2021).

The race went down to a photo finish (Kevin Morris photo)

Unlike last night’s blowout in the women’s 100, this one was close throughout. Thompson started best, grabbing the lead by 30 meters, but never gained significant separation. And for good reason – this was the deepest 100-meter race in history, with seven of the eight finishers breaking 9.90 (the previous record for most in a single race was five) and the first race ever with all eight men under 10.00 (previous record was was seven).

Lyles was in last place as late as 40 meters, but never panicked. He has been in this position before. Well, maybe not this exact position, last nearly halfway through the Olympic 100-meter final (admittedly, he was only .04 behind the leader). But he has always been a closer. Running people down is what Lyles does.

For years, Lyles and his coach Lance Brauman have poured hours at practice into improving Lyles’ start, but the goal was never to be first out of the blocks or first to 30 meters. The goal was just to keep Lyles close enough to deploy his greatest gift.

“If you’re in position with [the best] guys at 60 meters, with his top end, then some people have things to worry about,” Brauman told LetsRun.com last year. “All we’re really trying to do is put him in a position so that at 60 meters, he has contact.”

At the start of 2022, Lyles’ 60-meter personal best stood at just 6.57 seconds. Since then, he has worked diligently in the weight room, adding 10 pounds of muscle to allow him to put more force into the track. And he has run 60m race after 60m race indoors over the last three years, to the point where he won the US title this year in a pb of 6.43.

Even the runners had to wait to find out who won (Kevin Morris photo)

Thompson went through 60m in 6.41 on Sunday. But Lyles had contact, splitting 6.44, and, as usual, Lyles closed better than anyone over the final 40m. Lyles gained on Thompson with every stride, then dipped at the line, but it was too close to call at the finish and the Stade de France held its breath.

Lyles is not a man who lacks for confidence, and throughout this entire year, he has told anyone who will listen about how he will win the 100-meter title in Paris. But in this moment, he doubted himself. As he stood next to Thompson, necks craned toward the scoreboard, Lyles thought he had been beaten.

“We were waiting for the names to pop up and I was like, ‘To be honest I think you got that one big dog,’” Lyles said.

Then the scoreboard changed. Lyles was declared the winner and it only took a moment for the old Lyles to return, holding his arms wide, mugging for the cameras, and raising his bib to the sky for all to see. Thompson was left to dwell with how close he had come.

“I’m going to be disappointed but I’m super grateful and happy at the same time,” Thompson said.

NOAH LYLES’ OLYMPIC DREAM COMES TRUE!

100M GOLD MEDALIST. #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/qR6bkXLHhE

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 4, 2024

Results (Wind: +1.0)

*Detailed race analysis with 10m splits

Lyles’ victory is sweet redemption from Tokyo

Three years ago, Lyles was not even on the Olympic team in the 100 meters after finishing 7th at the US Olympic Trials. He still headed to Tokyo as the favorite in the 200 meters, where he was reigning world champion, but, nursing a knee injury, Lyles was upset by Canada’s Andre De Grasse and had to settle for bronze.

It was a race that has fueled Lyles ever since, and he had a physical reminder with him this week: Lyles packed the bronze medal in his backpack and took it to the track with him before all three rounds in Paris. Now Lyles has earned the right to upgrade, but it was far from a simple journey.

Given his victory at last year’s World Championships, Lyles began 2024 as the presumptive Olympic favorite, a status that only grew after his strong indoor season. And though Lyles rolled through the competition at the US Trials, sweeping the 100 and 200, he suddenly faced a pair of serious challenges from Jamaica. First, Oblique Seville handed him a defeat in Kingston on June 3. Then Thompson ripped a world-leading 9.77 at the Jamaican trials, a time Lyles has never run. An event that had been slow to get going in 2024 was bubbling nicely as the Olympics approached.

Lyles did not look like the Olympic champion after his first round in Paris on Saturday morning, where he was surprisingly beaten by Brit Louie Hinchliffe (9.98) and finished 2nd in his heat in 10.04. It was a reminder that, at the Olympics, everyone is good.

“I’m not going to lie: I downplayed my competitors,” Lyles said. “But don’t worry. That won’t happen again.”

Lyles did not downplay his competitors in tonight’s semis, but he was beaten again as Seville clocked 9.81 to Lyles’ 9.83 to win their heat. Lyles drew confidence from the time – “I’m like, I’m running 9.83 in the semis, I’m about to PR” – and was not overly bothered by the placement. But he felt he had brought too much aggression into the semifinals, so he called his therapist for advice.

“[She said], ‘You’re holding onto something. You need to let it go. You need to let it flow.’”

In the final, he did. Just as he did in last year’s Worlds final in Budapest, Lyles ran a personal best of 9.79, and he would need every one of those hundredths to win gold. Thompson, meanwhile, was just off his own personal best, but felt he fell short in a few key areas.

“I wasn’t patient enough with my speed and myself to let my speed bring me [to] the line in the position that I know I could have gone to,” Thompson said. “…I should have been more relaxed and patient.”

It’s tempting to say that experience was the difference. Lyles has been through this routine before at major championships, while Thompson had never run at a Worlds or Olympics before this year. But in a race decided by .005, a dozen things can shift the outcome. The truth is, Lyles ran the best 100 of his life when he needed it the most. Thompson ran a great race, too. He needed his best for gold.

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The race made history for the fastest marks ever for places 4 (9.82 vs 9.87), 5 (9.85 vs 9.90), 6 (9.86 vs 9.96), 7 (9.88 vs 9.98), and 8 (9.91 vs 10.00).

Here are the graphics we made at Intel. I work at @Nike innovation now so don’t work on them anymore so not sure all the details for this version but basically we used cameras and computer vision to track each athlete in each lane. Because the cameras were calibrated to specific… https://t.co/YUWVyV5wqe pic.twitter.com/y2TaLpWYwq

— Ashton Eaton (@AshtonJEaton) August 4, 2024